Norfolk Economy to be Boosted Thanks to £230,000 Funding Wins

Three projects in Norfolk have been given the go-ahead after winning a total of £230,000 from the New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership (NALEP) that will create jobs, apprentices and businesses across the region.

Great Yarmouth Borough Council has received £98,000 of the sum to establish the Norfolk and Suffolk Offshore Wind programme. This will go towards creating a campaign to put Norfolk and Suffolk as the world-leader in offshore wind. The project itself will create 24 new business and comes just after the government announced a sector deal with the energy sector that states by 2030 30% of all UK energy will come from wind. Norfolk and Suffolk will be a huge part of this, and another 6,000 jobs and apprenticeships are expected to result from the new offshore wind development.

Norfolk County Council were also awarded £22,000 out of the pot to develop a project that will build the East of England’s supply chain capacity in the offshore wind industry. This project, working alongside offshore wind giant Vattenfall and the Norfolk Chamber of Commerce, will communicate contract availability to local SMEs and help them bid for the place. The project is expected to create 15 jobs, 47 learners and 40 apprenticeships, as well as increasing the opportunities for local SMEs to scale up and grow.

The largest chunk of money was awarded to the Visit East of England project to go towards creating an online booking and itinerary planning service to direct tourists to the East of England all year round. This project aims to grow the economy in the East by bringing in an additional £1 million in revenue every year and will create four new job

As discussed in our latest blog post the skills gap is currently costing the UK £1.5 billion per year and it is high time that government and local authorities do something about it. The funding awarded from the Innovative Growth Fund will help to do this, working across public, private and industry sectors. Doug Field, Chairman of the New Anglia LEP, commented ‘we set out clear ambitions for the fund to help deliver the aims of the Norfolk and Suffolk Economic Strategy and supercharge economic growth in our two counties’.

This blog post originally appeared on the NAAME website. NAAME is Hethel Innovation’s Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering network.

NAAME (New Anglia Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering) aims to develop a network which will create opportunities and drive the growth of manufacturers and engineers through collaborative working, allowing New Anglia businesses to shape their own future.